Books by Charles Mathes

Charles Mathes has impressed readers with his inventive series of "Girl" stand-alones in which a different female heroine must uncover a dark secret about her family's past. In this fourth addition to the series, Mathes brings readers Jane Sailor, a young woman who choreographs stage combat for theatrical productions. She is working at a regional repertory company when she gets an ominous phone call urging her to return to New York: something has happened to her father.Jane has been expecting this call for years. Aaron Sailor was a promising painter before he fell down the stairs of their Soho loft. He has been in a coma for the past eight years, and the doctors have made it clear that there is no chance for recovery. This phone call from the nursing home can only mean one thing. But her father is not dead, Jane learns to her surprise. Still unconscious, he has suddenly begun to speak. What he says is as baffling as it is upsetting. "No, Perry, don't do it. No, Perry, no." Were these the last words that Aaron spoke before his head was smashed on the vestibule floor? Could his fall perhaps have not been an accident? And who was Perry? Searching through her father's old papers Jane stumbles across a name she has never heard before. Perry Mannerback turns out to be an eccentric billionaire who spends his time giving away money and collecting rare clocks. Jane goes to work for him, hoping to find some answers, but instead discovers the real question: Will she get out of this alive? From the high stakes world of New York City art galleries to the underbelly of London's antique trade to the puzzling attentions of an international financier, Jane follows the trail of a killer as Charles Mathes takes his readers on another dazzling adventure.

San Francisco magician Emma Passant is puzzled by her grandfather's cryptic will. He writes that she is to "take her place at the helm and turn the wheel on the legacy that I have kept hidden from her". As Emma ponders these elusive words, a friend of hers is fatally shot--by the same gun that was used to kill her grandfather. The mystery begins to come together, however, upon the disappearance of a model boat--the replica of a boat her grandfather had sailed on years before. Emma departs in search of the real vessel, and finds herself in an adventure and into the shocking truth about her family's past.

So reads the fine lettering on the back of the intricate, ornate Celtic brooch Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine has just inherited. Lucy, an independent twenty-nine-year-old orphan, has devoted a considerable amount of time and energy trying to unravel the mystery surrounding her past. Having contacted everyone in five hundred phone books whose name even vaguely resembled Trelaine or MacAlpin to no avail, all she knows is that her parents were killed in a car crash in western Massachusetts twenty-eight years ago. Her luck changes when she sees a newspaper ad from a law firm inquiring as to the whereabouts of one Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine. The ad leads her to an "inheritance," which is no more than the Celtic brooch stolen from her after the car crash so many years ago, but it does provide her with a fresh trail of clues to follow, clues that take her to New York City. To make ends meet while continuing her investigations, she takes a job with hyperactive business entrepreneur Tak Wing, owner of the Neat 'n' Tidy chain of funeral parlors. Determined to help Lucy find her true identity, Tak Wing insists that they travel to the Scottish Hebrides, with Lucy disguised as a punk rocker. From kidnapping to grave-robbing to tea with the local laird, Lucy's adventures propel her toward a conclusion that may shake the British Empire to its foundations.